The owners of pubs and restaurants in Gurgaon’s Sector 29 had failed to reply to notices served to them in January by the Haryana State Pollution Control Board (HSPCB)

The Haryana state pollution control board has decided to act against pubs and restaurants in Sector 29 from next week for flouting pollution norms.

The owners of pubs and restaurants failed to reply to notices served to them in January by the pollution watchdog. The units were found dumping their untreated sewage into the municipal drains that connect the Yamuna. The board had also asked the pub owners to install effluent treatment plants to treat waste.

“We have yet not received any report from pubs and restaurants in Sector 29 with regard to fixing the treatment plant on their premises. We will take action against the violators next week,” said Bhupender Singh, regional officer, HSPCB.

According to the environment ministry notification 2016, it is mandatory for food joints and banquet halls with a siting capacity of 35 to set up wastewater treatment facilities for recycling water. There are about 35 pubs and restaurants in Sector 29.

Also, these units should have proper oil and grease trap-cum-settling tank for holding the effluent from kitchen, washing activities and the septic tank.

Further, the units are supposed to submit photographs of the oil and grease trap-cum-settling tank and the septic tank with the pollution department.

However, a majority of food joints in the city do not adhere to environment norms and discharge effluents into the sewer. This eventually ends up contaminating the groundwater, claimed officials of the pollution control board.

According to the HSPCB officials, the investigation report on these food joints revealed that the waste that is being generated is above prescribed limit. According to the norms, the biochemical oxygen component should not be more than 30 mg and chemical oxygen should be less than 250 mg in one litre of waste water.

However, in a clear violation of the norms, each food joint in Sector 29 discharge more than 3,000 litres of waste water every day which is not treated at all, the pollution watchdog said.

Restaurants owners say it is difficult to set up an ETP as they do not own any land in Sector 29 and the food joints are mostly run on lease. “We are presently focussing on the Supreme Court direction on liquor ban near the highways,” a member of Sector 29 Pubs and Bars Association,said.

“To set up ETPs, we require space and this area isn’t suitable for one. We have no ownership over the land so we cannot create an ETP on our premises,” Amit , a staff of Sublym Kitchen & Bar, Sector 29, said.